Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [95]
The more I tried to reach out to people, the more I found myself caught up in a crazy excess of emotion. I couldn't find a gentle way to let my feelings out. Instead, I damned them up until my strength gave out and they came gushing out in a wild, uncontrolled outpouring.
I even swept my mom and dad up in the flood.
Most days I could barely wait until Mom and Dad arrived. Their visits were the high point in an otherwise bleak day.
Every night just after dinner I waited by the window. From my bedroom window I could see as Dad's car turned off the long curving drive and into a visitors’ parking space. I watched the car roll to a stop. Sometimes nothing happened for a long time. Sometimes I would just watch the car sitting there for what seemed like forever, waiting for the door to open and my parents to emerge.
When they finally appeared, I waved to them from behind my safety screen, and shouted down to them. It seemed like the time would never go by as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. Even when they finally arrived at the door to the unit, the wait wasn't over. No one but the nursing staff could unlock the door. Sometimes the staff were so slow in arriving with their jingling keys I felt I was going to jump out of my skin in anticipation, my parents waiting on the other side.
Then they were inside, full of smiles and cheer, and all the energy they brought in from their lives on the outside. They almost always brought something. A new sweat suit. A bagel and cream cheese sandwich with tomatoes and onions, the way I liked it. A rock tape I had requested. Batteries for my Walkman. Cigarettes. A Chinese dinner. Often they brought things not just for me, but for other patients as well. They brought clothes for patients whose families never visited. They brought little gifts for the nursing staff. Once Dad brought a lobster dinner—complete with melted butter, claw crackers and bibs. When they brought food for me, they often brought enough for everyone on the unit.
I loved them so much. I was so proud of them. I was so glad to see them. And I couldn't wait for them to leave. They stirred up in me a whirlwind of violent emotions that I didn't understand, and had to struggle mightily each and every visit to control until they were gone.
Much as I loved my parents, I felt like I was on stage for them too. I fought so hard to seem normal before them. I didn't want them to know how sick I was. I didn't want them to see me out of control. From the moment they arrived my struggle to keep control battled with my fear of losing control. I knew how much my illness hurt them. I knew how much they suffered for me. As much as I could, I wanted to keep the worst of it from them. I wanted them to be proud of me. I didn't want to cause them heartache.
As soon as they arrived, I herded them into my room. I didn't want anyone watching us. Mom and Dad seemed so out of tune with the world I lived in. My mom liked to stretch out on my bed with her shoes off. I lived in dread that someone would come in the room and see her there like that. There weren't any rules against it, but I knew that the staff disapproved of her making herself quite so comfortable. Meanwhile my dad sat on my desk chair facing the center of the room. I paced. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to act. They seemed to be expecting something I couldn't give.
Their visits were short, usually no more than half an hour or an hour on weekends. They seemed endless to me. We talked about their friends and the country club and about my playing racquetball once a week, and tie-dying T-shirts in therapeutic activities. We talked about Mark and Steven. Everything they had to say seemed so unimportant to me. The world I lived in— a world of medications, nurses, regulations, passes, Voices and buzzers—seemed so monumental, and the world they lived in seemed so far away. I was so self-involved it was nauseating even to me.
Mostly I struggled to conceal the Voices from them. They each wanted so badly to see me well. If I told my dad about some out-of-control